Community Blog's blog

Inspired by the idea of building resilience around local, grassroots economies in response to peak oil and climate change, the transition movement has evolved into a global network of cities, towns, and neighborhoods that self-organize around the principles not only of reducing CO2 emissions but doing it by fostering happy, healthy, and creative communities.

The other day I was having a conversation with some new friends at one of the great Wilkinsburg community gardens, the topic of the conversation was yield. You see... Community gardens are often plots of land with very few perennials, shrubs or trees... Recently some of the community gardens in my area have begun planting fruit trees.

Food security and food justice, energy consumption, community health and resilience, ecological well-being, air quality and world peace: these are just some of the issues that actions registered as part of the May Transition Challenge have been addressing. We’ve seen them over and over, addressed from every angle and each with a creative twist. From a specially-designed growing dome that provides the ideal environment for a vegetable garden at 8500 feet above sea level, to a one-man operation that monitors chemical trails in the skies over Milwaukee and publishes the results online for community members to see, to a summit in Nairobi, Kenya, run for and by teenagers to start engaging in dialogue and working towards creating a culture of sustainable peace, these are just some of the things we have done this May.

On Monday, July 18, Transition US hosted a Maestro Conference call featuring a fascinating conversation between Transition Movement founder Rob Hopkins and the author of the recently published book, The End of

Today I caved and did something I've only done a few times over the last four years: I turned on my air conditioner. It's not particularly stifling according to the thermometer, but after 24 hours with a heat index in the mid-to-upper nineties, it was steamy inside my house. The six of us (including one 90-pound, long-haired dog) were starting to wilt.

'Community' is a term widely used in conversation and writing on Transition. What does community mean to you? Here's a guest post shared by Jim Belcher, a member of Transition Orlando, Florida, exploring a vision of community.

Essential to the effective Transitioning from fossil fuel dependence to local resilience is our own Transition from isolated, self-centered individualists to compassionate creators of genuine community. Here's one vision for genuine community:

ALBANY, CA: “Urine, if you dilute it and drink it, is great for your health,” a woman claimed. My disbelief must have registered on my face, because she continued, “I used to do it all the time. It’s good for you!” I wasn’t sure that something that my body works so hard to get rid of should be ingested.

Luckily, Lourdes Gonzaga, the woman leading the group came to my rescue: “Of course, even if you doubt its medicinal value, urine is still great for your garden if you dilute it with water. It’s rich in nitrogen.”